1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, in general, to animal training devices, and, more particularly, to apparatus for the training of horses for cow cutting.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For many years, horses have been trained to "cut" cattle from a herd. Where "cutting" was once, and sometimes still is used for practical reasons, such cutting is now largely for sport.
In training the horse, historically, live cows, or calves, are brought into an arena, which is enclosed and is generally circular for limiting the movement of the cow. The horse then occupies a position toward the center of the arena and is trained in its movement to force or "cut" the cow in a desired direction about the inner periphery of the arena, or to hold the cow in a given position. Problems in the use of live cows include the expense of obtaining and maintaining the cattle, as well as a "souring" of a particular cow or calf; i.e., the cow or calf may be used only for two or three days in the training of a horse before becoming listless and not responding to the cutting procedure.
For this reason, several devices have been invented and developed for training cutting horses with the use of artificial animals, as typified by the inventions embodied in U.S. Pat. No. 3,962,995, issued to D. Brinson and U.S. Pat. No. 4,601,261, issued to G. Genelin.
The Brinson device provides an artifical calf mounted on a rotatable platform; the platform being moveable in an arc about a vertical pivot and the platform being moved forwardly and rearwardly by a telescoping extension on a boom which holds the platform. Besides being costly in construction, the Brinson apparatus is extremely confining in area covered; provides maintenance problems in having a multiplicity of moving parts; does not provide proper stimulus because of the size of the machinery relative to the size of the artificial animal; and presents safety problems because of collision possibilities between the horse to be trained and the platform holding the artificial animal.
The Genelin device is also extremely confining in area covered and, because movement of the artificial animal is constricted for movement only in a lateral to and fro direction, only one end of an arena can be effectively used. Besides utilizing only a prescribed portion of the arena, such linear movement requires the horse being trained to move completely lateral and substantially parallel to keep up with the artificial calf. In an enclosed arena, with live calf, the horse may pivot on its hind legs, moving the front legs about the pivoting rear legs to cut the calf. The action of the horse is therefore unnatural in requiring full lateral movement upon slight movement of the artificial calf. Additionally, like the Brinson device, the Genelin device includes a multiplicity of moving parts, including a gearing system; a plurality of cables; pulleys; and other mechanisms--all contributing to maintenance problems and proper stimulus problems because of the mechanics of the device.